There is a certain fear that comes with being out in front of a crowd, anxious and delirious, and being spoken to by strangers who believe themselves to be experts. That fear can be experienced in this short drama by the indie collective Sand Gardeners.

"Unpaid Serenade for Future Solution Group" [2026 eCon Grief/Heartbreak Singalong Nightmare/Archive], produced as part of the Ludum Dare 48 jam, is about a man who, in public It's a short free game about the pit that grows in the pit of your stomach before you perform in public. You attend some sort of convention on climate change and listen to the organizers talk about innovation and radical change.

Faces become blurred, the world blurs. I wonder how much I drank and how much I needed to go to the bathroom. I used to force myself to perform in front of people, but I'm not sure how much of my anxiety about throwing myself in front of strangers is mirrored in this shifting, dreamlike meeting place.

Then your name is called. You stand up, and "Amped Serenade" becomes the most tragic-comic karaoke scene ever put on screen.

Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" begins to play, and you type the lyrics on the screen and sing along. If you make a mistake, the vocalist (your vocalist) trembles, cracks, and gets the words wrong in his drunken stupor. It's like a playable echo of the barroom karaoke scene in Disco Elysium, pouring your heart into a terrible performance that the audience has to grin and bear.

Amped Serenade also has a quiet undercurrent of climate anxiety running through it. Amped Serenade is available for free download at Itch.io. There is little worry about getting the dialogue wrong.